


A Boyfriend Tale

by fardareismai



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-22 18:55:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3739786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fardareismai/pseuds/fardareismai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and Rose are together, aren't they?  Jack will make them say it or die trying, and with Jackie Tyler around, he just might!</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Boyfriend Tale

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fourth of my 500 follower fic giveaway prompts. @eighthprincessofheart gave me the following prompt:
> 
> I want Nine/Rose and I’m good with whatever rating, but preferably T at least. As for prompt, how about they are in a relationship and they’re going back to London for the first time since they got together. They try to hide it from Jackie (maybe Mickey too) and they fail miserably. Sound good? 
> 
> Sounds good!
> 
> For the record, this did not, in any way, go where I expected it to go… and I apologize for that.

Jack entered the console room, straightening his braces, as the TARDIS landed with a thump.

“Where we at today, Doc?” he asked, hopping up onto the centre grating that held the console.

The Doctor looked up in surprise, as though not expecting his companion to have shown up at that moment.  He blinked stupidly for a second, and Jack grinned.  The Doctor had been just a bit slow and loopy since he and Rose had finally (finally!) gotten together a week before.

Jack had expected it after “Rose!  I can dance!” and had watched the faces and behaviours of his shipmates carefully for the next several days, but there was nothing to indicate that the pair of them were anything but close friends and traveling companions.

About a week before, however (though it was hard to tell on the timeship) he’d gone looking for Rose one night after waking from a nightmare.  She was always good to talk to when he was feeling upset but he’d found her door locked as it had never been.  He’d bent his ear to the keyhole (not wanting to wake her) and heard her making some fairly unmistakable noises.

The Doctor had made Jack’s position and freedom (or lack thereof) clear with regards to the 21st century blonde, but he’d considered throwing caution to the wind and offering assistance in what he assumed was her solo act.  It wasn’t until Jack heard the Doctor’s baritone that he’d pulled away from the door in shock and (just a bit of) shame.

Once he’d made it back to his room, however, Jack had whooped in joy.

Once the pair of them had finished… whatever it is they’d been doing in Rose’s room, however, Jack had found that they acted no different, save for the Doctor’s occasional distraction, and Rose’s slightly-more-frequent blushes at Jack’s more ribald jokes.

The first day, Jack had wondered if, maybe, what he’d thought hadn’t been the case at all.  Perhaps there had been nothing salacious going on behind Rose’s locked door.  After finding her door locked again for two nights running, however, Jack was sure.  If there was anyone in the universe who knew sex, it was Jack Harkness.

Perhaps he was less well-versed in love, but Jack could recognize that as well.  If there were two beings in the cosmos who were madly in love, they were Rose Tyler and the Doctor, he knew it.  However, when Rose’s bedroom door wasn’t locked, they barely touched, save for the occasional world-saving, proud-of-you hug and the significantly-less-occasional hand-holding.  They didn’t kiss.  They didn’t touch each other more than they had.  They didn’t talk about it.

They didn’t act any different.

It was driving Jack up the wall.

“Er…” the Doctor said, looking back down at the screen before him.  “We’re… oh no…”

Jack sprang to attention.  The only thing that could make the Doctor look that frightened was the stuff of nightmares, and he without a single weapon.

“Where, Doctor?”

“We’ve got to go, before she finds us,” the Doctor muttered.

“She?  She who?”

“Scariest alien I’ve ever encountered,” the Doctor said, rushing around the console.  “She’ll have heard the ship if she was home.  Pray she isn’t.”

“Who, Doctor?”

“Come on, dammit!” the Doctor yelled at the console, which seemed to be giving him grief.  A panel of buttons sparked at him, forcing him to draw his fingers away.

“Doctor!” Jack shouted, finally bringing the Time Lord’s attention onto him.  “Who are you running from?”

Suddenly there was a rapid-fire series of knocks on the front door of the TARDIS accompanied by an angry voice.

“Oi, what are you doing in there?  Where’s my daughter you bloody alien?  Get your big ears out here right now and tell me what’s going on!”

The Doctor sighed dramatically and slumped against the console.  “Jackie Tyler,” he said.

Jack’s eyebrows rose.  “Rose’s mum?  That’s who you’re scared of?”

The Doctor glared at Jack.  “I am the last of one of the most evolved races in the cosmos.  I can, if I like, control time in a way that would make your puny human brain explode.  I not only fought in the last great Time War, I ended it!  And that woman is the most terrifying creature I’ve ever come in contact with.”

Jack couldn’t help himself.  He burst out laughing.

“Oi, none of that!” the Doctor said.  “She slapped me!”

Jack only laughed harder.

During all of this, the pounding on the door did not cease, and Jackie’s comments were growing progressively more irritated.

Jack brought himself under control and, ignoring the Doctor’s panicked look, opened the front doors of the TARDIS to greet the small blonde woman standing on the other side, glaring.

“Jackie Tyler, as I live and breathe,” Jack said, flashing her his finest grin.

“Who the hell are you?” she asked suspiciously, though Jack noticed that her suspicion didn’t keep her from giving him an approving once-over.

“Captain Jack Harkness, at your service,” he said, taking her hand and kissing the back of it.  “I’ve heard loads about you from Rose and the Doctor, though neither of them mentioned that you were gorgeous!”

She blinked in surprise, and Jack could see that she was softening just a bit.  Then she shook herself and gave him a look that made him consider that perhaps the Doctor had a point in being afraid of this woman.

“Where’s my daughter, eh?  And Himself.  Why’ve they sent you?”

Jack dramatically clutched his heart.  “You wound me, Jackie!  No one sends me anywhere, I was just so excited to meet you that I came to the door first!  The Doctor is just here and Rose was in her room the last time I saw her.”  Jack stepped back to allow Jackie into the TARDIS.

“Don’t let her on my ship!” the Doctor shouted.

“I wouldn’t come on your blasted ship if you paid me!” Jackie shouted back.  She turned back to Jack, who was watching the exchange with amusement.  “So Rose is in her room, and you saw her there?”  Her look had become speculative.  “Well, at least her taste has improved.  Better you than ear-boy over there.”

“Oi!” the Doctor said.

“What?” Jack asked, wrong-footed.

“I could tell, last time I talked to her that she was finally getting laid.  I’m her mum, I know these things.  But I figured it was Himself over there.”

Jack nearly cracked a rib to keep himself from bursting out laughing again at the hunted look on the Doctor’s face.  “Well,” he said, controlling his voice, “actually…”

“Mum!”

Rose, with her usual excellent timing, chose that moment to arrive and defuse the situation.

“There you are, sweetheart.  I wondered if these two had lost you somewhere and just wouldn’t tell me.  Come on out of there, and bring your boyfriend to tea.”

Rose stopped dead in the middle of the console room staring wide-eyed at the Doctor.

Jack cleared his throat.  “That would be me, apparently.  I’m the boyfriend,” he said to her, quietly.

Rose blinked at him in shock.  “Why…?”

“Bring the Doctor too, if you must, but I want to talk to Jack,” her mother called to them from a few steps away from the TARDIS doors.  “Come on, you’re not leaving without tea.”

Rose glanced between the two men.  “Er… well… I guess today’s your lucky day, Doctor.  No need to have tea with my mum.  Jack… why does my mum think you’re my boyfriend?”

“Apparently the last time you called you sounded like you were finally getting some, and where better to get it than the master?” Jack asked, grinning wickedly.

Rose flushed, and the Doctor growled.  Jack just grinned.

“So… tea?  Twenty-first century British tea… sounds like an adventure!  Come on, girlfriend,” Jack grabbed Rose’s hand and tugged her toward the door.  As he expected, the Doctor was on their heels within 5 feet of the door.

“Doctor?  You’re coming too?” Rose asked, bemused.

“If you think I’m leaving you alone with Captain Lothario and Jackie “slaphappy” Tyler, you must be crazy.  If it is my lucky day, she’ll end up hitting him.”

“Sounds saucy!” Jack said with a smirk.

“Shut up, Jack,” Rose said, distracted.  “Doctor, what are we doing on Earth?  I thought we were going somewhere… exciting.  That’s what you said last… yesterday when I asked.”  

Rose blushed again, and Jack noticed the Doctor’s ears flaming from the corner of his eye.

“TARDIS brought us here on random,” the Doctor said, gruffly.

Rose frowned, confused, but Jack wondered… the TARDIS had always seemed to be of his mind where the Doctor and Rose were concerned.  Maybe she was going just as crazy as he was at their behavior.

“She must have thought it was high time…” he muttered.

“High time for what, Captain?” the Doctor said, just a bit nastily.

“For me to meet Jackie, obviously,” Jack quickly amended.  

~?~?~?~?~

“So how do you take your tea, Jack?” Jackie asked sweetly.

If nothing else positive came from this day, Jack would at least have probably learned how to stop himself laughing at the Doctor’s expressions by the time they were through.

“Honestly, Mrs. Tyler, I don’t drink much tea, more of a coffee man, myself.  How do you recommend I take it?”

Jackie simpered.  The Doctor fumed.  Rose appeared to be fighting back a giggle.

All seemed to be going to plan.

Once everyone had gotten themselves settled around the coffee table in the living room, tea in hand and a plate of biscuits on the table, Jackie turned to Jack again.

“So where are you from?”

Jack glanced at Rose and the Doctor, but answered readily enough.  “A place called Boeshane Peninsula.”  He shrugged slightly.  “It’s a bit of a backwater.”

The Doctor was frowning at Jack but, for once, not in irritation with him.  He obviously recognized the name- and probably knew something of the war that had driven Jack away.

“So is that in America then?” Jackie asked.

“Er… not exactly.”

Suddenly Jackie’s face was horrified.  “Oh my god, are you an alien too?”  She turned furiously to her daughter.  “What is it with you?  Why can’t you pick up some nice, normal, human bloke?  You break things off with Mickey and you end up sleeping with aliens and…”

“No, wait,” Jack said, seeing Rose’s face go from red to white in an instant.  “I am human just… not from America… or the 21st century… or Earth.”

“Wha?”

“He’s from the future, Mum,” Rose said, exasperated.  “From a time when humans have left Earth and spread across the universe.  It’s amazing.”

“But you are human?  Genetically compatible and everything?” Jackie asked, giving Jack a glare.  “‘Cause I’m not getting any younger, and neither is Rose.  You’ll want to have kids eventually, right?”

Even Jack was thrown off by this, and just sat blinking in surprise for a moment.

“Mother!”

Jack gathered himself up.  “Yeah, no worries about that, Mrs. Tyler,” he said with a grin that he could see raising the Doctor’s blood pressure.  “100% grade-A, genetically compatible human being here, make no mistake!”

“Oh my god,” Rose moaned, putting her face into her hands.

“I’ve heard that before a time or two,” Jack said in a stage whisper to Jackie, winking.

“Jack!” Rose said, sitting up in an instant.

“Harkness,” the Doctor growled.

Jack just grinned.

Rose sighed.  “Mum, this is ridiculous, Jack isn’t-”

“So, in the future, they’ve got genetic modifications, right?” Jackie asked, ignoring her daughter.  “What kinds of things have they modified?”  She ran an appraising eye over Jack’s leather trousers and raised an eyebrow at him.

“Oh, just about everything,” he said wickedly.  “Just ask Rose.”

Jackie nodded.  “Thought as much.  Haven’t heard her sound that happy ever before.  Knew she must be getting it from someone who knew what they were doing.  Should have been clear that it couldn’t be-”

“Mum, that’s enough!” Rose cried, standing up.  “Honestly, the Doctor is…” but she trailed off, her eyes on the Doctor.

Jack had seen what she had.  The Doctor had shaken his head, almost imperceptibly at her- he didn’t want her to confess.

“The Doctor is…” she began again, and her voice was a bit less steady- just a little bit sad, “very… nice to let Jack and I… be together… on his ship and all,” she finished weakly, and sat down again.

“Oh Rosie,” Jack said, gently.  He got up from his chair to join her on the sofa, putting an arm around her and drawing her into his side.

Rose forced a smile, and rested her head on his shoulder under the barely-suppressed glare of the Doctor.

“The pair of you are just so precious,” Jackie said, looking at them through slightly misty eyes.  “You’re going to have the prettiest babies.”

Rose inhaled sharply.  “Stop talking about kids, Mum,” she said.  “We travel the universe and get into trouble, that’s no place for a kid.”

Jackie waved this away.  “That won’t last forever though, and now that you’ve found a normal bloke, you can come back once you’re done with this… alien phase.  You’ll be able to have a normal life.”

“It’s not a phase,” Rose said, and for an instant she sounded like the teenager that she only barely wasn’t anymore.  “I love this life with the Doctor… and Jack,” she added, as an afterthought.  “I love the adventures and doing amazing things and saving people.  It’s… Mum, there’s nothing like it.  I’ll never stop, don’t you understand?”

Jackie looked at Jack.  “You’ll keep her safe, won’t you?  And bring her home in the end?”

The question seemed to hang in the air among the four of them.  Jack looked down at Rose beside him, who looked miserable, he looked at Jackie, who looked determined, and then he looked at the Doctor, and almost looked away.

He looked like a man dying of thirst looking at a glass of pure water.  Like a starving man would look at bread.  Like Rose Tyler was the only thing that would keep him alive.

“I will always protect her,” the Doctor said, and both Tyler women looked at him.

“She’s not yours to protect, now is she?” Jackie asked, sharply.

The Doctor barely acknowledged Jackie’s comment, his eyes were trained on Rose.

“I’m his,” Rose said, quietly.  “If he wants me.”

Jack smiled.  There was electricity crackling between the two of them.  He’d get burned if he didn’t move away, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to move and jar the pair of them out of their trance.

“Always,” the Doctor whispered.

“Then I’m always yours.”

Jackie was looking back and forth between the pair.  “What are you all on about?” she asked, finally breaking the spell.  “I thought Rose was with Jack?”

Jack laughed, and shoved Rose toward the Doctor, who pulled her down onto his lap, cradling her close and whispering in her ear.

“No,” he said, grinning and watching the pair of them.  “She’s not.” 


End file.
